Hvammsá

Today we woke up and walked straight from our campsite onto our first hike to Svartifoss. It was 3km total and we also passed Pjofafoss, Hundafoss, and Magnusarfoss on the way so it was a 4-for-the-price-of-1 waterfall hike. This was the most Autumnal of all our hikes so far, with most trees showing the orangey colour. Then we drove an hour to Fjaðrárgljúfur Canyon which we were fairly unimpressed by after yesterday's views but it would have been impressive if we saw it earlier in the trip.

We paid a quick stop in the town called Vik and had our first proper meal out in Iceland. Iesha got a delicious seafood soup and Eth got a a yummy pizza for lunch. The restaurant was so cute and was a classic cozy Nordic wooden building.

We also went to the most famous black sand beach called Reynisfjara. People have died here before because of "sneaker waves" which come further up the beach than you expect and drag you out into water which is so cold that you can go into a kind of paralysis/shock and not swim out. We didn't have any problems but were amazed that 90% of the visitors completely ignored all warnings and went straight into the no-go zone - silly tourists. Ethan thought it would be way cooler and iconic if they had a big Sneaker Waves Kill sign like at Gnaraloo.

Wowee the South Coast of Iceland is tourist central. Because we're so close to Reykjavik again, lots of people come out on day trips which makes the crowds way bigger. We went to two of the main Iceland waterfalls, Skogafoss and Seljalandsfoss. Skogafoss is a 60m tall waterfall which you can walk all the way up to (we got quite wet from the mist while taking photos). It's not often we've found tall waterfalls which are also quite wide so this was very impressive, we can see why it's a crowd-favourite. We planned to camp here for the night but it was super busy and the campsite was just the waterfall parking lot so we decided to keep moving. Seljalandsfoss is another big crowd-pleaser because it's a big waterfall that you can walk behind. Iesha was a bit let down that we saw the back of a waterfall and there was no secret entrance to a fairy world but this must be the one waterfall that doesn't have that. We finally got to wear all our rain gear for the first real time but not because of weather, purely because you get absolutely soaked when walking behind Seljalandsfoss. While there we did a little 500m walk down the road to Glfabrui which is a waterfall inside a cave where you have to walk along a stream to get in. This was super cool and magical, we also got very wet from the spray and mist in the close confines of the cave. On the way Ethan recreated his mum's critically-aclaimed picture of Darcy climbing "really high" on one of their up north trips years ago. Again, another day of breathtaking waterfalls and scenery…Read more